In his Angelus for the Assumption, Pope Francis expressed his closeness to the more than 200 people killed and those affected by the monsoon floods in India.
POPE FRANCIS
I pray for the victims and the displaced, for all the homeless families. May the Lord give strength to them and to all those who help them.
The pope also recalled the people in Syria who are constantly suffering from the war in their country.
POPE FRANCIS
I ask you now to accompany me in this gesture I am about to make with a prayer. I will bless a great number of rosaries destined for our brothers and sisters in Syria. It is an initiative of the 'Aid to the Church in Need' association. They produced around 6,000 rosaries, that were made by the Carmelite nuns of Bethlehem. FLASH. Let us continue to pray the rosary for peace in the Middle East and throughout the world.
Before hand, the pope reflected on the feast the Church was celebrating that day: the Assumption of Our Lady.
He focused on the figure of Mary highlighting how she was able to choose what really counts in life, instead of seeking outdated joys that do not fill the heart.
POPE FRANCIS
In life it is important to search for great things, otherwise you get lost behind so many small things. Mary shows us that if we want our lives to be happy, God must be put first, because He alone is great. How many times, instead, do we live chasing things of little importance: prejudices, grudges, rivalries, envy, illusions, superfluous material goods.
Traditionally, around this time, the popes usually spend a few days in Castel Gandolfo to rest. This is because the temperature is more cool there than in Rome. However, Pope Francis has spent most of his time in the Vatican, where the heat is so intense that the Eternal City is almost completely empty.
